


Pit Stop on the Way to Mordor

by Wheudonym



Category: Young Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Gen, M/M, Mechanic!Teddy, Meet-Cute, Pre-Slash, The Lord of the Rings References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-27 05:50:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15679272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wheudonym/pseuds/Wheudonym
Summary: In which Billy takes the family car to the mechanic.





	Pit Stop on the Way to Mordor

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this at work today (had to sit in the basement for 2+ hours to monitor staff, boring work that lends well to fic writing). Trying to get back into writing, so wish me luck!

There was supposed to be a life lesson here. Or so Billy was told by his mother.

“Routine car maintenance is an essential life lesson that applies to all aspects of our life, and not just cars, William.”

He wasn’t sure how driving through Manhattan traffic and over to Brooklyn to sit in a mechanics shop for two hours was a “life lesson” but Billy suspected it was the lesson of ‘Your father has been refusing to do it for a month now, so here are the keys and my card.’

There was probably a more profound life lesson in that statement in there, but Billy was far more concerned with how much time it would eat of his Saturday. In the waiting area of the shop, Billy weighed whether or not he should finish typing out his essay on his laptop or pull out the comics he had bought yesterday.

Reluctantly, Billy pulled out his laptop and headphones. He turned on his study playlist, which was entirely comprised of Lord of the Rings cover songs (because nothing improved essay writing more than Elvish chanting). He was about finished with his first paragraph when the Music cut out.

He looked to the player, but the song timer kept ticking forward. He paused it and then clicked the play button to start it again. Still no sound. He pulled out his headphones, checking to see if the music was coming out of his laptop speakers. Nothing. He looked at the Bluetooth headphones, cursing the fact that he had forgotten to charge them- though he swore he had only used them for an hour or so since his last charge. Either way, he stuffed them back into his backpack and went back to his essay (which was horribly boring without the promise of the hobbit drinking song which was further down the playlist).

“Are you the wizard with the minivan?”

“Huh?” Billy looked up to find a young man in mechanic overalls behind the counter. He was giving what Billy could only describe as a winning smile, that honestly took Billy’s breath away. He was so distracted by it and the bit of grease of the man’s strong jaw, that his brain didn’t process the ‘wizard’ part of that sentence. Instead he just answered, “Yes, that’s my car.”

“So was your trip to Mordor halted by your oil change? You know Orcs are known to clip brake lines to ransack unaware Hondas, you should probably check those too.”

Billy blinked a few times.

“Huh?” He repeated eloquently.

The man’s smile faded a bit, “You are aware that your car has been playing Lord of the Rings songs for the past two hours right? I’ve been working in there feeling like I’m helping Aragorn realize he is the rightful king of Gondor by just changing his car oil.”

“Shit-!” Billy realized his music was still playing on his laptop and the car was close enough to pick up the sound. “The Bluetooth!”

“Is that what happened?” The man said with a laugh, “Seriously I had no idea how to turn it off. Thought the car was possessed by JRR himself.”

“I’m not sure if that would be hilarious or terrifying.”

“You would definitely get a linguistics lecture out of it, for sure.” The man came out from behind the counter, and wiped his hands on a rag before he held out his hand, “Teddy Gamgee, at your service.”

“Billy.” He said as he shook his hand, before adding, “Holy shit, Billy Baggins would sound horrible. Your name isn’t actually Gamgee, is it?”

“Ha! No, that would be kind of amazing though.” Teddy smiled. “But seriously, about your brakes, you should get them realigned. I can do that for you, if you have an extra twenty minutes to spare? It’s a bit of a slow day.”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess so,” Billy said. “Sorry about the music.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. Most of the time the guys play the radio and it was a nice change of pace.”

“Yeah, I usually play it while I’m writing essays.”

“College student?” Teddy asked.

“NYU,” Billy clarified.

“Oh I have a friend who goes there. You wouldn’t happen to know an Eli, would you?”

Billy raised a brow at him, “I think my friend’s roommate is named Eli?”

“Huh. Might be him. Wouldn't that be weird?” Teddy said. “You sure you aren’t a wizard?”

Billy snorted, “I wish.”

Teddy smiled, making Billy wish he was better at talking with people. Or rather, with cute guys. Especially with nerdy and muscular mechanic cute guys.

“I’ll be right back.” Teddy said, completely unaware of Billy’s inner turmoil over what to say next. “Should only be twenty minutes, tops.”

So Billy was left in the waiting area, daydreaming about “accidentally” becoming friends with Nate’s roommate so that he could “accidentally” run into Teddy again. It was a stretch but it was better than his initial plan, which was to crash the family minivan so he would have to get it fixed. This is why his psychologist mother always talked about intrusive thoughts, Billy mused. There was probably another life lesson in there that should would want him to learn.

When Teddy came out again, he had the keys and bill in hand, “Here you are, Mr. Frodo.”

“Ha, do your coworkers know about your nerdy side?” Billy asked as he signed the bill and took back the keys.

“After America caught me reading the Silmarillion on my break? I haven’t heard the end of it for months. I’ve just learned to embrace it.”

“That’s alright, my twin brother always gives me a hard time about my comic collection. I’ve just started wearing more and more superhero shirts to piss him off.”

“Are you identical twins? Because if you are you should pretend you’re him and show up to his friend’s parties in cosplay. Tell all his friend how much of a closet nerd he is.”

“I wish I had thought of that in middle school. He bleaches his hair and we’ve lost all our parent trap opportunities.”

Teddy snapped his fingers, “Almost had it.”

There was an awkward pause where Billy really wanted to ask Teddy to hang out sometime, but he ended up swallowing his own tongue in the fear of appearing too forward.

“Have a nice day,” Billy said, as he slung his bag over his shoulder.

“Yeah. You too.”

It may have been Billy’s overactive imagination but Teddy looked sad to see him go.

In the car, driving back to Manhattan, Billy cursed himself for not saying something. At the very least he could have offered to hang out if Teddy was ever visiting his friend at NYU.

Billy was still internally grumbling about it when he made it back home, telling his mom that the oil had been changed and the tires realigned.

“Billy, did you write this?”

“Write what?” Billy looked down at the receipt he had just handed his mother. On the back of the thin strip of paper was a note in writing that was nicer than any of Billy’s penmanship.

‘In case Frodo ever needs another pit stop before heading to Mordor. Or Brooklyn -Teddy’ followed by a series of numbers and little drawing of Gandalf, which was surprisingly good.

To say Billy smiled would be an understatement.

His mom raised an eyebrow.

He coughed abashedly, “He’s Nate’s friend. He works at the mechanic shop.”

“Mhm.” She hummed and Billy didn’t really care if she saw straight through him.

He punched in the number into his phone.

 _The Gandalf doodle is very impressive. (This is Billy by the way)_ -Billy

Less than a minute later, a text came in.

 _Thought you might like it. Also: Who else would it be?_ - Teddy

 _I don’t know. You may doodle on all your receipts_ - Billy

 _Nah, I don’t. You wouldn’t happen to be needing another car oil change, would you?_ \- Teddy

 _No, we only have one car,_ Billy hesitated before adding: _But if you ever need an extra nerd around…_

 _You can never have enough nerds. You wouldn’t happen to be free on Saturday, would you?_ \- Teddy

Billy pumped his hand in the hand. “Yes, yes, yes!”

He typed out: _Yeah but don’t count on me being on time - Billy_

_Of course, you know what they say about wizards -Teddy_

**Author's Note:**

> "A wizard is never late, Frodo Baggins. Nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to."
> 
> This is so self-indulgent (as all great fics are) but can you blame me? 1. I just had a LOTR marathon (12 hr, extended editions) and I fell in love all over again. 2. This story is based on something that actually happened to me (minus the part about getting someone's number, lol) but my bluetooth did connect to my car while playing LOTR covers and probably confused the h*ck out of some poor mechanic. Sorry bro.


End file.
